No.09

String Quartet No.9 in E flat major Op.117 (1964))

Moderato con moto -

Adagio -

Allegretto -

Adagio -

Allegro

The work that would have been the Ninth String Quartet, had Shostakovich not destroyed it, was a “children’s work (about toys and excursions).” The score we now known as String Quartet No.9 is anything but that and, though dedicated to his third wife Irina, betrays little sign of tenderness alongside its uncomfortably sardonic sense of humour. A severe but profoundly thoughtful score, it not only links its five movements in an unbroken continuity but also weaves through them a complex of thematic cross-references that reachest its long-term climax in a passionately eloquent cello recitative towards the end of the closing Allegro.